E3 by Me3: Bethesda
That’s E3 by Me, Me, Me because all I’m doing is writing how I feel about the show. I’m not giving each company a “report card” and I’m not declaring that anybody “won E3”
Even more so than EA, Bethesda made a handful of comments that felt downright honest about their commitment to fans. At one point they even threw up a 3×3 grid of their teams from around the world applauding their players. Man, press conferences aren’t really for the press nor are they conferences anymore. With that in mind it’s hard to picture there not being an E3; it’s quickly evolving into fan appreciation livestreams. For what it’s worth I believed them even more than EA while at the same time not really caring much about what they’ve got coming.
Fallout 4 continues to become Minecraft with new DLC adding logic systems, conveyor belts and practically the entire experience of Fallout Shelter with user created Vaults. It even does the cutaway, side view as your “test subjects” go about their underground lives. I really should finish the base game, maybe I’d be more hyped up for this stuff beyond just how expansive Fallout 4 is becoming.
Speaking of expansive, Dishonored 2 sure has a lot of ways to kill dudes: Mid-air grapple kills. Voodoo doll multi-kills where linked enemies share the horrible death inflicted on a single target. Long distance vertical kills. Multiple ways to stab people in the neck. Black magic, smoke monster face stabs. The game is lavishly detailed and the world is so enticing to explore but all the animations felt ultra janky. All those cool kills looked disjointed and lacked impact. For a “AAA” title that’s five months away I expected it to be much more polished. Meanwhile, that new Prey seemed trippy with its Groundhog Day premise that led into a reality twisting escape from an alien vessel.
Beyond these couple of “high points” the show just wasn’t winning me over. Quake: don’t care. Stuff in VR: don’t care. Elder Scrolls Online: don’t care. Elder Scrolls card game: really, really don’t care. Skyrim Remastered: don’t care. DOOM DLC: don’t care… but I will grab that “freeware” version of DOOM to see how poorly it runs on my laptop (and how much better it performs on PS4).
